


Across the Sea, or: A Comedy

by MooseFeels



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: A Lot Of Masturbation, Alternate Universe, Camboy Victor Nikiforov, Color, M/M, Masturbation, faulkner style i've just invented a whole county okay, gross liberties with the geography of virginia, oil paint, paint, sex therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-04-24 03:34:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14347140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: Yuuri lives his life inside of himself, inside of a world of color. Yuuri lives his life inside of himself, but he's not always great at realizing his own needs, much less his desires.Viktor is a camboy. He lives his life in the realm of other people's desires.Neither of them is ready for each other.





	1. Chapter 1

Yuuri hasn’t slept in days. He hasn’t; he can’t. It’s not for lack of trying-- for lack of stepping out of the workshop and taking a shower and eating something and running his hands through his hair and going for a walk and then laying in bed. Every six hours or so, for the past three days, he’s tried, but still, sleep evades him. He will close his eyes and try and try for hours, but it still slips, just out of his grasp. 

So he climbs out of bed and puts his clothes back on and goes back to the workshop, to the mill. To the paint.

Yuuri doesn’t make a lot of colors. Some pigments require specially made bases to grind properly and make a consistent color. He’s fairly limited by what he can mill and tube himself in his workshop in the shed. Still, though, he’s popular enough with the local artists and schools that he can mostly break even-- keep a roof over his head and food on the table and bills paid-- and not have to take a second job.

Which is good, because, well, insomnia. And also, Yuuri’s not classically a people person. Or maybe, more accurately, most people aren’t a Yuuri person. So Yuuri sets his own hours in the workshop and usually the most he has to interface with people is setting up who carries his paints, which is mostly done by email and deliveries every week. 

Yuuri hasn’t slept in days, which is why he looks so rough when he answers Phichit’s skype call. 

“Fuck, Yuuri,” is the first thing Phichit says. “How long?”

Yuuri sees his face, picture in picture, in the window and shrugs. He presses the heel of his hand into the eye socket, the pressure relieving the headache just long enough for it to be overtaken by the fluorescent burst of phantom lights. 

“Uh,” Yuuri murmurs. “I think uh...I think I got like, a couple hours...day before yesterday?”

Phichit sighs. “Are you eating?” He asks. “Are you showering?” 

Yuuri looks at his paint streaked clothes. At the rough smear of cadmium on the back of his palm. 

_That’s poisonous_ , Yuuri thinks absently. 

“Uh,” Yuuri answers.

Phichit sits in front of the camera in his apartment, string lights behind him, hamster cage sitting on the dresser behind. Phichit looks well. He always looks well. His hair is shiny and brushed and his shirt hangs off his tanned shoulders easily. He’s well lit. He’s always well lit. Yuuri figures it must be a video editing thing.

“Yuuri,” Phichit sighs, his eyes rolling up, like what he’s looking to say might be written on the ceiling.

“Are you just going to yell at me?” Yuuri asks. “I could call Mari if I just wanted someone to yell at me. Minako. I don’t know.”

Phichit huffs another little sigh. “We worry about you,” he says. “It’s because we love you, okay?”

“Right, yeah,” Yuuri answers. 

“Anyway, how is it going? Are you still on that dating site?” Phichit asks. “I know there’s gotta be a scene there; it’s a fucking college town.”

Yuuri shrugs. “I-- I didn’t take it down,” he says. 

Phitchit’s dark eyes assess him from all the way across New England. Figuring him out, even now. “But,” he says, leaving the end dangling.

“But-- I-- after the _last_ one, I didn’t,” Yuuri adds, or tries to. 

“That guy was just an asshole,” Phichit interrupts. “It was a fluke!”

“And the guys on the other dating site were, too, and that time you made me come to speed dating, that was just a coincidence and--” Yuuri sighs. He’s way too tired for this right now. “How is New York?” He asks. 

“I know you’re deflecting,” Phichit says. 

Damn Phichit and his almost preternatural ability to read Yuuri. 

“I also want to know how you’re doing,” Yuuri replies. “It can be two things.”

“Sure,” Phichit says. He sighs, theatrically, his shoulders rising and falling dramatically under the curve of his shirt. “It’s fine. It’s great, actually. Really great.”

Yuuri smiles. “Yeah?” He asks. 

Phichit nods. “I can’t believe I fooled myself into thinking Ashville had good Thai food, Yuuri. I’ve barely been here three months and _already_ I have a tom kha place _and_ a khao man gai place and they are _different places_. When you come up, you can _finally_ have some decent cooking.”

“I can’t wait,” he answers. “It uh-- it might be a few months, though.”

Phichit raises an eyebrow. 

“One of the intro painting classes, the professor is furnishing his classroom with my primaries,” he explains. “The money is really good but it’s a lot of work. I have a jump on it because that one store cancelled a week before I had the order finished but there’s a lot I have to do and--”

“You have to sleep,” Phichit interrupts. “And eat and shower.”

“I know,” Yuuri says. “I know. But I can do this, and the money is good and it would be good for business.”

“Is Minami still working for you?” Phichit asks.

“He’s in California to see family for the next month,” Yuuri answers. “So it’s just me in the studio for a while, I guess.”

Phichit takes a deep breath.

* * *

Lascaux county sits along the edge betwixt Piedmont and the Blue Ridge Mountains, the town carved by tall hills and parks furnished by tall deciduous trees that drop all their leaves like a wildfire come autumn. This time of year, though, they are dressed in every color of green-- yellow toned chartreuse as common as viridian as likely as emerald as frequent as olive. Yuuri rides past a two hundred year old magnolia tree, the glossy leaves interspersed with creamy, ivory flowers. Jasmine blooms orange and yellow along fences. This early in the morning, the grass is riotously bright in the heavy dew; it glistens silver in some of the light, screams all the lime-toned shades of new growth in the shift of it. 

The bike ride across town to the grocery store is not nearly as impressive as the term “across town” would imply. Crispinsville is hardly more than a village, a fifteen minute drive from a perishingly small liberal arts college and far enough away from the DC area that they get retirees but no one actively in the thick of it.  Most of the houses are nearly thirty years old at the newest, and the roads are of cracked brown asphalt, sidewalks overgrown with weeds. It’s quiet. 

Yuuri moved here because of a postcard, but people don’t ask him about it, so he doesn’t feel much obliged to tell them. 

Sometimes, on mornings like this in early summer, Yuuri thinks it was worth it. 

It’s small enough here that Yuuri doesn’t bother with a bike lock. Not that he could, anyway, even the organic grocery he visits doesn’t have a bike rack for him to secure his bike to. He nudges the kickstand with his foot and heads inside.  

Yuuri brushes his thick, dark hair away from his face and wrinkles his nose at the drag of his greasy hair against his fingers. He’s not sure how much of it is him and how much is linseed oil left on him, settled into the air by the spinning of rollers, the agitation of the paint with the mixing spatulas. 

Yuuri sighs, before heading to produce and grabbing a couple of cabbages, a grapefruit, some apples, some carrots. He grabs a fresh bottle of soy sauce and a box of chicken stock and he turns around and runs, full body, directly into someone. 

He drops the soy sauce; the bottle breaks. Dark brown liquid (so dark someone who knows less might even call it black) spills out onto the floor. 

“Fuck!” the person Yuuri ran into hisses.  
“Uh,” Yuuri says, a _genius_.

They look up at him; angry green eyes set into a face with fae sort of features. A blonde bob, shiny. 

“Watch where the _fuck_ you’re going!” They hiss and move along.

Yuuri looks down at his shirt and pants, dripping with the soy sauce and sighs. He grabs a new bottle and tucks it into his basket and heads to the checkout. 

“Hi,” Yuuri says. The cashier’s nametag reads _Sara_. “Uh-- I broke--”  
“Yuri already told us,” she says. She smiles. She’s wearing a lipstick over her broad, full mouth. The color is a deep, shiny vermillion. It looks rich, almost fatty, spread over her mouth. It’s not orange, but it flirts that edge. 

“Do you like Degas?” Yuuri asks. 

“What?” She asks. 

The scanner beeps. 

“You’d look good in orange,” Yuuri says. “The lipstick.”

“Oh!” She says. She laughs. “Thanks,” she says. 

Yuuri nods. “Vermillion,” he says. “Sorry.”

She has a nice smile. 

Yuuri nods. He pays for his groceries and leaves.

God, he has to sleep.

Yuuri climbs back onto his bike and rides back across town, to his house. 

The house is narrow, but tall. A bedroom sitting on top of a garage, with a living room and kitchen tucked underneath. There’s a backyard, overgrown with grass and a shed, and the garage and shed are both where Yuuri makes paint.

Yuuri deposits his bike on his porch and grabs his groceries and heads inside. He tosses his jacket on the coatrack and puts his groceries away before making himself some toast and eating a banana and opening his laptop and checking his email.

There’s an email from the professor he’s working for— _just checking in!_ — that he reads and replies to ( _I should have all the sets done by August, no problem. I already have a jump start on the cadmiums)_. He finishes his toast and sighs. 

He should sleep. 

But it’s nearly ten in the morning by now, and if he goes to sleep now, he’ll only succeed in making himself nocturnal, which isn’t _better_ , it’s just a different problem. He should shower, but if he’s going to spend all day in the workshop, he’ll just get dirty immediately. 

Yuuri sighs, again, and heads out back to start working.

* * *

Yuuri’s workshop is small; his whole operation is. He only makes about a dozen colors; it’s what he can turn out consistently and in batches big enough to make any kind of money without putting him under. His mixer and mill are industrial, but they aren’t as big as they would be in a more official kind of facility. He measures pigment and mixes and mills in here, and the puts the paint into tubes in his garage.

Yuuri claps his hands together thinking for a moment.

He grabs a record and slides it onto his player and turns it up, just loud enough that he doesn’t feel alone in the studio. The dulcet tones of George Harrison warble out, and Yuuri takes a deep breath, before grabbing a couple buckets of oil, his scale and heading over to his mixer.

All of Yuuri’s equipment is secondhand, scavenged from going-out-of-business sales, eBay, and thrift stores. That doesn’t mean it came _cheap_ , or that Yuuri didn’t empty out his savings or his college fund building what he has in his workshop. It does mean that it has some personality, though, like the way the mixer Yuuri bought from a bakery that was closing down that rocks dangerously on the middle speed, or the way his mill mysteriously smells like burning hair sometimes.

Yuuri weighs out the right ratio of linseed and walnut oil, before carefully pouring it into his bowl. He grabs his ventilator and pulls it on over his face— the dust is inescapable, but it helps and it keeps Phichit off his back. He then grabs a cookie sheet and lines it with a couple sheets of oversize parchment paper and weighs out the right amount of cadmium. He’s working on a relatively neutral red today— a deep, warm toned one that will complement the other colors he’s formulated to go with this set. He’s got the first batch of these colors done already, and he thinks he can put a dent in the rest of them by the end of today. He checks the weight, cautious, and then reconsults his notes, before turning the mixer onto _very_ low speed and carefully beginning to add the pigment to the oil base.

It’s not just mixing that makes the paint what it is. It’s the milling, which coats the pigment in oil more fully. It’s a transformation, a balancing act to get it precisely at the body and shape that Yuuri wants it at.

This is what Yuuri excels at. This is his art. More than actual painting or photography or sculpture; more than weaving or cooking or music or ballet. Yuuri makes paint, and he loves it.

After the pigment is distributed evenly into the base, Yuuri takes it over to the mill and fires up his machine. The sound is heavy and loud on the air, a smooth roll like low thunder.

And Yuuri carefully begins to spoon the nascent paint onto the mill.

There’s the moment, right as the mill begins to pick up the color and spread it between the rollers, when it spreads wide for the first time, right as it begins to become what it might be. It’s a feeling unlike anything else Yuuri’s ever felt, sparking something curious and proud in his chest.

The moment of watching what he does best _become_ thrills him, and watching it as _color_ being pulled into the world—

 _Wow_.

Yuuri runs the cadmium red through the mill, where it gathers at the end at a depositing shuttle. His mill has three ceramic rollers, and he runs the paint through them a few times, until it’s consistent with the formula he’s developed and it matches the swatches he’s done of the previous batch. It takes a moment, a process that’s mostly observation and testing and thought. Not really idle, but not bursting with energy, either.

It takes a while, and once it’s milled to his satisfaction, Yuuri loads it into a bucket and hauls the bucket into his garage, where he sits on a high stool in front of his workbench and begins to carefully portion the paint into 37 ml tubes that he twists shut with a key himself.

This is where it really takes time.

If Minami were here, Yuuri would have him help with this, but he’s not, so Yuuri doesn’t.

And Yuuri works and works and works, until he’s run out of paint and the only light in the garage is from the shop light and his fingers ache and he thinks he might be hungry, but mostly he’s just _tired_.

Yuuri gets up from he stool and stretches and looks over at the bucket.

He sighs, before he scatters some castille soap on the inside and washes his own hands. He pulls off his clothes and tosses them in the hamper beside the door and stumbles into his house.

It’s nearly nine at night.

Yuuri climbs into his shower. He lets the hot water roll over him for a long time. Feels the travel of it over the plane of his body; his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his legs.

Yuuri feels his eyes settle closed and sees behind his eyelids the wonderfully biological color of his own eyelids, the light-glowed red of his living flesh. Yuuri looks at the inside of his own eyes as long as he can, before he relaxes and holds that color in his mind. Holds _red_ and _redness_ there at the forefront of his mind and he—

Yuuri feels his breath bottled in his chest, his blood a racing circuit under his skin.

Yuuri lets his hand drift forward, take hold of his cock. He wraps his fingers around the length of himself and jacks himself, slowly, under the spray of the shower. The water causes his hand to glide; the friction so different from lube.

Red, redness. Blood. Crimson. Vermillion.

Yuuri bites his lip, jacks himself faster. Harder.

Yuuri keeps going. Yuuri can’t stop.

Soft burgundy, warm like water. Warm like blood. Like an embrace over Yuuri’s shoulders.

Yuuri jacks himself and he comes with a shout, suddenly. He breathes through the feeling, shuddering. Moaning.

Yuuri comes and he stands in his shower, breathing.

He swallows, drily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is slow but let me tell you this fic will escalate.


	2. Chapter 2

Phichit takes the bus down from New York to Virginia. He doesn’t tell Yuuri he’s doing such a thing, of course. He

just packs his bag and goes— _comes_ , rather, showing up on Yuuri’s doorstep at around eight am, banging on the door.

“Yuuri,” Phichit calls, banging against the screen door. “Yuuri, wake up, I’m making breakfast.”

Yuuri thinks that’s what Phichit said to get Yuuri to let him into his house. Yuuri’s pretty sure. He’s sitting in front of his coffee table, nursing a cup of tea, wearing a t-shirt and his boxers and nothing else.

“Why did you come down?” Yuuri asks. 

There’s a sudden, riotous scent of fish sauce. He must be making eggs. 

“Is that anyway to greet your beloved friend, light of your life, your muse, your dearest bro?” Phichit replies. “I’m hurt.”

“I’ve known you for like six years,” Yuuri says.

“Alright, that’s fair,” he says. He puts a bowl in front of Yuuri and sits down opposite him on the floor, in front of the table. “I have an idea.”

Yuuri takes a bite. It’s good. Damn Phichit.

“So, I have a friend, through work,” he says.

Yuuri nods. He shoves a bite of egg into hismouth— he must have found the half an onion in the fridge, and the broccoli. 

“Is dating going okay?” Phichit asks.

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Don’t,” he says. 

“No, Yuuri— it’s not like that,” he says. “He’s—“

“He’s a great guy,” Yuuri interrupts. “He loves art. He’s an artist. He has a dog. We’re in a class together. I heard he’s into you. He’s a sex god.”

“I’m not trying to set you with him, Yuuri, he’s a—“

“A what?” Yuuri asks. He takes another bite. If this weren’t so good, Yuuri would have kicked Phichit out already. 

“Yuuri, he’s a sex therapist,” Phichit says. 

Yuuri doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He tries to figure out what the fuck he could say. 

“Phichit,” Yuuri sighs, closing his eyes. “I’m not-- Phichit, I’m not going to pay someone for sex.”

“Okay, so _first_ of all,” Phichit says, “there’s nothing wrong with paying someone for their services, and _second_ of all, you have needs, Yuuri, and someone can help with them.” Phichit takes a bite of the eggs. “How the fuck are you out of rice?” He says. “And bread.”

Yuuri sighs again. 

“Do you remember Chris?” Phichit asks. “At the party, when I moved into the city and you came up to see me? The one with the stripper pole?”

“Oh my god,” Yuuri says. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Well, he’s not just some perv,” Phichit says. “He’s a sex therapist.”

“I don’t want to see another doctor,” Yuuri says, automatically. “And I _especially_ don’t want to see a sex doctor.” 

How fucking humiliating. Yuuri can’t even _fuck_ right. 

“Yuuri,” Phichit says. He looks at him. “I know you’re lonely. And I know that you _want_ stuff.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Yuuri groans, burying his face in his hands. “Phichit—“

“I lived with you for four and a half years,” Phichit says, louder over Yuuri’s groaning. “I know! Okay! I know! And I also know that you aren’t pursuing stuff and I know that you’re too caught up listening to your brain to talk to people! I’m not an idiot, and you shouldn’t have to be unhappy!”

Yuuri uncovers his face. Looks at Phichit. 

“I never want to talk to you about this again,” Yuuri says. “I can’t believe you bused to my house first thing on Saturday morning to tell me I need a doctor for my fucking.”

“Listen,” Phichit says. “Chris is fantastic, and I looked him up and he has great Yelp reviews.”

“ _Why do sex doctors have Yelp reviews?”_ Yuuri moans. 

“He’s highly recommended,” Phichit says “And if it doesn’t work out, you get to be mad at me forever. Madder than you are about me suggesting it in the first place. And I’ll buy you a good dinner. A _fancy_ dinner.”

Yuuri swallows. Leans back on the couch. 

“I’d never talk to you about it,” he says. “Ever.”

“Of course not,” Phichit says, taking a bite of eggs. 

“Even if it did anything,” Yuuri says. 

“Yeah,” Phichit replies, nodding around a mouthful of breakfast.

“This is such a bad idea,” Yuuri murmurs. It’s barely eight thirty in the morning. 

“Just think about it,” Phichit says. 

* * *

Yuuri sits in his bedroom and looks at his computer screen, anxious, a little nauseous, for what feels like hours. 

He looks at the screen and worries his lip between his teeth. The appointment starts in few minutes. They’re meeting by Skype, because the actual practice is in New York. 

_But I work via remote all the time,_ he’d said in his email. _It’s really no issue, and I know it must be more convenient for you._

Yuuri looks at his computer screen. He gets up from his couch and heads into the kitchen. Reaches into the fridge to pull out a pitcher full of sun tea that he keeps iced in the fridge. Yuuri stands there for a moment before he closes his eyes, and sighs. 

It’s _fine_. It’s all fine. And if he doesn’t like it, Phichit will never bring it up again. 

There’s a loud rapping on his door, suddenly. Yuuri frowns and dashes across the house and opens the door.

It’s the kid from the supermarket. The one with the hay-colored hair and green eyes. He still looks angry, like a wet cat. He frowns at Yuuri, his bike sprawled on the front lawn in a tangle of frame and tires. 

“You need an assistant,” he says. “Minami’s not here. You need an assistant.”

Yuuri looks at him. Blinks a couple of times. 

“I’m sorry?” He says. 

The kid huffs. “Minami, from Celestino’s paining course. He’s not _here_. You can’t make all the paint by yourself. I’m your assistant.”

“Minami is out of town,” Yuuri says. “I’m going to make the paint until he comes back. It’s fine.”

“No,” the kid says, voice growling a little. “I’m your assistant.”

“But I work with Minami,” Yuuri says. He closes his eyes. Sighs. “I have an appointment I have to keep today. Can we do this later?”

“I’ll wait,” the kid says, slouching into the pillar of Yuuri’s porch, expression a stern glare. 

“No,” Yuuri says. “No— come back tomorrow. I can’t-- come back tomorrow.”

The kid rolls his eyes. His feet are quick and sharp as he goes down Yuuri’s steps. He collects his bike and rides away. 

Yuuri watches him go, and then he closes the door and heads back into the living room.

He sighs, and then he sits down on the couch. The Skype line activates. 

Yuuri takes a deep, steady breath, and answers it. 

There’s no video. It’s all audio, which is good. 

“Hi,” a voice says on the other end of the line. “Is this Mr. Katsuki?”

“Just Yuuri,” he answers. “And you’re Dr. Giacometti.”

“Chris,” he replies. “Good to know I found the right person!”

Yuuri nods, before he says, “Sorry. Yeah.”

“So,” Chris says on the other end of the line. “I know you must have questions.”

Yuuri sighs. “I—“ he starts. “Yeah. Sorry. I— sorry. Sorry. I’m— fuck, sorry.”

_God_ , he’s such freak.

“There’s really nothing to be sorry about,” Chris says. “I’m not sure what you’re apologizing for.”

“This is so embarrassing,” Yuuri says. “This was a mistake— I’m sorry.”

“More people than you think talk to sex therapists at some point,” he says. “Sex is complicated and strange. I understand that this may be new and intimidating, but there isn’t anything to be embarrassed about.” There’s a sound of him taking a sip of something before he continues. 

Yuuri just looks at the empty Skype window, the hollow avatar of his unseen conversational partner.

“I wouldn’t have a job if it were that niche, Yuuri, I promise,” he says. “I have a doctorate in human sexuality and a background in biology and gender studies, and I work closely with a few MD’s and naturopaths up here to help with things that might require medical intervention. Or things adjacent to medical intervention. For some people, that’s medication and for other people it’s acupuncture and for other people-- well, my services vary. But I’m a professional and what we say stays between us, 

“Okay,” Yuuri says. “Okay.” 

“And what do you do?” Chris asks.

“Oh,” Yuuri says. “What?”

“This first meeting is intake, to make sure we’d be a good match. If not, I can refer you to one of my colleagues. I’ll ask a few questions, about your lifestyle and the nature of your issue, and we’ll go from there.”

Yuuri takes a sip of his tea. “I make paint,” he says. “Oil paints.”

“You make paints?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “It’s a small business? I own it myself. I have a few contracts with the university and some stores.”

“Do you paint?” Chris asks.

Yuuri shakes his head. “No,” he says “Uh, I— I don’t. I just like…I just like the color.”

“Interesting,” he comments. “I’ve never met a paint maker before.”

“Well,” Yuuri murmurs. “Ta-dah!”

He swallows. There’s a moment of silence, between Yuuri and his computer. 

“My problem isn’t that I can’t—“ He chokes for a moment, words getting stuck in his throat. “It’s not— I’m _capable_. I just, I get… fuck, when I tried in college, they said that I stared.”

“They said--”  
“They said I stare,” Yuuri repeats. “I get-- I get caught up in stuff. Overwhelmed. I don’t know. And I-- they said I stare.”

“I see,” Chris says.

“So I never…I never got further. And It’s not that I don’t _want_ to have sex or— or be in a relationship or whatever. It’s that. It’s that it’s— I just hated it. I hated that.”

“You hated…?”

“I hated that they said I stared,” Yuuri says. “I don’t mean to. I never mean to.”

There’s a moment, before Chris says, “I think I might have an idea.”

* * *

Viktor’s apartment is bigger than a studio, and that’s how he knows he’s really done well for himself. Viktor’s apartment in the city is his kitchen, his living room, his bathroom, his bedroom, and his office. Officially, it’s a second bedroom. Technically, what Viktor uses it for might mean it’s _still_ a bedroom.

Viktor does have a bed in there, after all. It’s a metal daybed, that sits on the wall opposite from his camera setup, lit pretty well by a couple of boxes. His toy chest is at the foot of the bed, and in drawers underneath are his clothes, his costumes, some of his props.

The key is compartmentalization. Viktor decided this a few years ago. There’s a person he is at home, with his friends and with his dog. There’s a person that goes to the pet store and the grocery store, a person who teaches ice skating across town a couple times a week.

And then there’s vgooddik, who exists wholly within this office, and also across a few different computers all around the web.

Viktor’s been camming for a couple of years now, and he’s one, found out he’s pretty good at compartmentalizing, and two, he’s made enough money to keep him in an apartment by himself with a room just for his job.

Viktor boots up his computer, and while everything wakes up, he takes a quick shower. He towel dries his hair and slides on a boxy t-shirt and a pair of sweats. Today, he’ll be fresh from the gym. It’ll explain the flush leftover from the shower and his damp hair.

Viktor pulls up the chat.

_vgooddik: just got back from the gym. all cardio and i am beat!_

There’s a moment, almost waiting, as the chat opens officially and voice come filter in. His regulars are here— daddydessert and fourTimes, of course— and a couple of chat names he doesn’t recognize.

That’s fine, though. Viktor turns on his camera and smiles into it.

_daddydessert: all that cardio and ur still gonna work out_

_goldenBoy: he can’t be exhausted we all know that_

_QuatroVajeenie: throwback to the six times in one stream video_

_goldenBoy: Never 4Get._

Viktor smiles.

Let’s do this.

* * *

 

Yuuri opens the chat window, anxious. He worries his lip under his teeth, looking at it.

 _You don’t have to like it,_ Chris’s voice echoes in his head. _If you don’t, you can just leave the chat and we’ll talk and try something else. But a sexual interface where watching is okay might be a good idea._

Yuuri takes a deep breath. No one is really here. It’s just him, in his house. It’s okay. It’s quiet.

Yuuri sits on his bed with his computer in front of him. There’s a window open that’s going to be a video and a chat along the side. A few people are logged in, talking to each other.

A window pops up— _Register as a Guest!_

Yuuri looks at the bar.

 _cerulean_ , he types.

 _Welcome, Guest cerulean!_ The window reads before it disappears.

The video stream flickers to life. Yuuri swallows.

The light is golden and soft, interior. It’s not from a window; it’s clearly some sort of lighting source. Shadows are few. It’s artificial, in a way. Comfortable in its specific artifice.

There’s a man on the camera.

And, well, he’s beautiful.

He has a fan of silvery hair that falls from his scalp to the top of his cheekbones. He has blue eyes . He’s wearing a loose, boxy shirt that shifts and slides from his shoulders. He’s a little flushed, with his hair damp.

He waves to the camera, smiles with his eyes shifting closed.

Yuuri licks his lips.

“Hi!” He says. HIs voice is tinny in Yuuri’s speakers. “Sorry I’m starting a little late; I just got back from the gym!”

There’s some activity in the chat. Yuuri doesn’t pay attention to it, though. He just finds himself watching.

He smiles a little, mischievous and light. He stretches up, pulling his hands through his hair, the shirt following up to show the hard, toned planes of his abdomen. He stretches his shoulders, his back.

He yawns, his voice high and sweet. “I’m so _stiff_ ,” he says. “And I’m ready to go.” He winks.

Yuuri swallows. The chat keeps blowing up. Yuuri keeps watching the video, though. He adjusts the window, making it larger.

He watches as his arms raise high, pulling off his shirt. He watches his hands, delicate and soft, trail down his own chest. He watches how his fingers rest, twist, manhandle his nipples that are perk and pink and beautiful. He watches how he moves over the surface of his own body, how he pulls off his clothes.

Yuuri watches him, watches the flush of pink across his pale skin, his eyes settle closed, his mouth hangs open, his hand slowly, slowly, slowly pulls the edge of his sweats lower and lower, gradually revealing a trail of silvery hairs and then—

He’s spread on the bed with his sweatpants slipping rapidly down his thighs, down his knees. His hand wraps around his hard cock; his other hand dives into his mouth, sucking on his own fingers. His neck is so long. His throat. His shoulders. His collarbones.

He’s beautiful.

He’s so beautiful.

His long legs in front of him, pale against the deep green of the sheet underneath him. The slender shape of his hips.

Yuuri watches. Yuuri stares.

His hips buck, his voice cries out. His body moves, tensing and relaxing. Settling and unsettling.

Yuuri watches. He’s free to stare. He’s _paid_ to stare.

Yuuri watches.

The man in the video touches himself. Touches his body. The man in the video comes.

Yuuri watches, fascinated. Overcome.


	3. Chapter 3

The week rolls by easily, beautifully. Yuuri makes paints and bottles them into tubes, seals them up and puts them in boxes. Yuuri does his work and he goes to the grocery store and he eats and he talks to Phichit and then Wednesday rolls back around and Yuuri—

Yuuri remembers, he remembers the color of the column of his neck. He has a name, whoever he is, even if Yuuri doesn’t know it, and he hates the idea of thinking of a person out there in the world being called _vgooddik._ So Yuuri just thinks of the man in the camera as just being either _him_ or the man in the camera. The object of Yuuri’s gaze, his fascination.

Yuuri wakes up on this Wednesday and he has a bowl of yogurt and he paces his bedroom some. He swallows and takes a shower, feeling the long rake of hot water over his skin. He combs his hair and brushes his teeth. He paces his apartment a little more.

“Fuck, this is so stupid,” he murmurs to himself. He heads into the garage and seals a box of paints he finished last night. He checks the time.

The stream won’t start until this evening, but Yuuri is so hideously anxious. He wishes he knew why; it’s not like this is real or like the man in the camera knows him or can see him or like he _cares_.

He hops on his bike and drops off a few books at the library. He swings by the grocery store and buys a pint of blackberries. He rides out to a cow field by the side of the road and sets his bike beside a fencepost. He stands beside it for a moment, lets the sun beat down on his skin.

Yuuri sits down in the grass and slowly eats blackberries, lets time slip through his fingers. Listens to the air and the cicadas. Feels the occasional drift of a mosquito onto his skin, the sweat beading out from his pores. Yuuri sits down in the grass and he breathes and he waits and he tries to calm the dog-on-a-track fear that runs circuit through his brain.

It works. About half a pint of blackberries later, Yuuri climbs back onto his bicycle and heads home.

And then? Well, it’s time.

Yuuri logs in. Registers again as _cerulean_ and looks at the empty video window and ignores the chat.

At five thirty, summer sun still high in the sky, it starts. The camera flickers to life. The man waves.

Yuuri swallows.

The man is wearing a robe. It’s dark blue, a color that complements the pale ivory of his skin. His hair is clean and once more fanned over his face. His chest is bare underneath the robe. He smiles, inhaling deeply, his shoulders rising and falling.

“HI!” He says. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m still just in my pajamas— it’s too hot here to bother with clothes.”

There’s activity in the chat, but Yuuri can’t pay attention to it.

He stands, his pink tongue slipping out from his mouth to lick his lips. He lets the robe dip down further, further, further.

The robe slips off all the way, and he’s actually wearing a wide shirt underneath, cropped high to show his belly and hipbones. His shoulders are still revealed, but his arms and chest are covered. He’s wearing loose, boxy shorts in a grey material. Slates of grey and navy and blue, like a sea. Like a Rothko.

Yuuri watches his clavicles, the gathering of shadows there.

Yuuri’s not sure where the man in the camera lives. He’s not sure how far it is, but he knows he would walk there barefoot to give him a black ribbon, to complete the image; to perfect it.

Yuuri’s fingers itch.

The man in the camera pulls his shirt over his head, to show the planes of his chest. He tosses the shirt away, he runs both his hands up his jaw, up his head, to his shoulders, his chest. He uses his nails. The camera picks up the red trails of their drag against his skin.

Yuuri takes a deep breath.

When the man exhales, his voice slips through. Beautiful. As strangely beautiful as the rest of him.

Yuuri watches the man slowly, slowly edge his boxers down. Is that pubic hair, silvery, peering out from over top of them? Yuuri’s breath stutters. He pulls his boxers all the way down, and his cock springs up, the particular pink of flesh, of blood. His slender fingers wrap around it, jack it a few times, and the man inhales in sharp, crisp bursts.

“It’s hot,” he says. “It’s so hot.”

He reaches behind the camera. Grabs something metal, the surface frosted.

“Kept this in the freezer all morning,” he says. “Hope it’ll cool me down.”

He lays back on the bed. Spreads his legs as wide as the narrow surface will let him. He leans his head back; all the way back. His right hand dips down, down his pale body. Reaches under, between himself.

This long, horizontal body; beautiful, wavering like the line of a sunset.

The steel dildo, frozen, it goes underneath, between.

The man in the camera, his voice is like broken music as he cries aloud.

Yuuri watches the shuddering quiver of his shoulders, the red and pink of his mouth, the light across his body. Yuuri watches; Yuuri stares.

* * *

It’s not a far ride from Yuri’s dorm to where the paint guy lives. It’s just a hop on his bike and over the river, down main street and past the hippie grocery store. A few block past that— mostly cow fields and old farmhouses— and the shitty little two story that he lives in comes into view. Yuri knows it’s not far from the dorm because he’s tried biking there twice now; the first time to just run into him in the grocery store and the second to be rejected outright.

Yuri hates it. He hates how much he wants this job. How much he _needs_ it. It’s hard for him to find jobs that will pay him for working in art over the summer. The library is done hiring. He doesn’t want to be a research intern— he wants to work practically. He wants to do something worthwhile. He wants to do something with his hands. He wants to do something _real._

Yuri needs this job, and fucking _Minami_ , who’s in fucking _California_ , is managing to fucking hoard it.

Yuri ride his bike across town and stops in front of the guy’s house.

He lets his bike fall over in the yard. He glares at the house, standing at the edge of the yard.The grass is overgrown. There’s a package on the front porch. The door is open; the screen door is the only boundary between the living room and the outside.

Yuri watches a wasp turn lazy, predatory spirals around the porch, before returning to a nest.

He looks at it, for a long moment, before the guy steps through the front door and onto the porch, holding an open box cradled in one arm, his keys in the other hand.

“Hey!’ Yuri shouts.

The paint guy looks up at him, befuddled. Deer caught in the headlights.

“Minami’s in California!” Yuri calls. “You can’t do this all summer. Let me fucking work for you!”

The paint guy shakes his head. He fiddles with his keys, locking his door. “I’m fine!” He calls back. “I can do it all fine, on my own! It’s fine!”

Yuri takes a deep breath. Tries to suppress his temper.

“I need a job,” he says. “You need an assistant. Let me work for you.”

The paint guy looks at him again. “I can’t afford an assistant; the art department pays Minami,” he says.

“The art department will pay me, too. That dumbass is my classmate,” Yuri answers. “Where are you going? Let me run an errand for you.”

He looks down at the box in his arms.

“Clear it with your department,” he says. “CC me in an email. You can’t work for free and I can’t pay you.”

Yuri huffs. He kicks the sod, spits, and then climbs back onto his bike and rushes off.

* * *

Yuuri watches the kid bike off and away, and he stands there, looking at the clump of his yard he kicked up in anger. It’s true, though. Yuuri can’t afford to pay an assistant, and just because Minami is away doesn’t mean the local school will pay for him to take on a different one. He could find ways for the kid to be useful, sure, but—

Yuuri sighs. He ignores the wasp nest on his porch and grabs his own bike and heads down the road to the little boutique Minako owns off main.

Yuuri came here because he wanted to go far from home. Yuuri came here because Minako, his godmother, was close. Someone in the family just near enough in case he gets in trouble, but just distant enough that he can shake the reputation that follows him like a shadow back home. Far enough away that Yuuri can be the paint maker and not the fuckup.

Yuuri came here because of the postcard she sent him, years ago, showing mist creeping between the short mountains of the Appalachians. Yuuri came here because of the cool, delicious blues, seared into his eyes.

It’s not a far ride at all, especially because it’s through the part of town that’s flat. He barely even thinks, just follows the feeling in his feet. There’s no bike rack in front of the store, but that doesn’t matter much. Yuuri pulls his bike into the wide doorway and leans it against the glass window. Minako stands behind the register, her leg propped on the counter behind her, stretching deeply.

Yuuri knocks on the glass, and she looks up from the book in her hand and pulls out of the stretch. He steps inside, box of paints rested on his hip.

“Good morning, Yuuri,” she says. “Did you sleep last night?”

Yuuri looks away from her, reflexively. He shrugs. “I got an hour or two,” he says.

Minako takes the box from him, places it on the desk and begins to rummage through it. “You have to take care of yourself,” she says, shaking her head. “I know it’s hard, but—“

“I know, I know,” Yuuri says. Minako’s shop sells a little of everything— bows made by a woman across down, monogrammed bibs, postcards, sunscreen— if it could hope to capture a buck or two from a tourist, she sells it, and of course she stocks Yuuri’s paints, too. He runs his finger along the rim of a hand thrown mug. The green glazing on it is expressive and bright. He smiles. “I’m trying,” he says.

“Are you eating well? My tomatoes have just come in and Julia is already trying to get rid of them by the bushel,” she comments, looking over the tubes still.

“I’m eating,” he says.

“Come by tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll have vegetables for you.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I appreciate it.”

It’s quiet in the store, just Yuuri and his godmother. It’s quiet, but a little uneasy.

“I’m okay,” Yuuri says, answering the unsaid question.

“Are you really?” Minako asks him.

Yuuri’s eyes freeze on the mug, instead of looking back at her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Yuuri says, and he leaves the store. Gets back on his bike and rides across town, back to the house.

He wishes they would treat him like a fucking adult and not a child— not something they have to watch all the time, not some project constantly on the verge of self-destruction.

He bikes to the house and leans his bike against the porch. He unlocks the door and steps over to the couch and throws himself on it. He closes his eyes for just a moment.

He wishes he weren’t such a disappointment.

He takes a deep breath and gets back up. It’s about three.

He shrugs out of his sweaty clothes and tosses them in the hamper. He takes a quick shower, just to get the sweat and some of the oil off of him, and then he throws some laundry in the machine. By the time he’s done, it’s four and nearly time for the stream.

Yuuri wishes he knew why waiting for the stream makes him as anxious as it does, but it makes him as nervous as actually talking to someone. The anxiety is almost more than the strange kind of relief of watching.

Almost.

But the thing is (and he’ll never, _ever_ tell Phichit this), Chris was right. There’s something very freeing, about being allowed to just watch. To look at someone and not have to worry about what the think. To look and not have to worry about being watched back.

Yuuri anxious cleans the dishes in his sink, and by the time five rolls around his kitchen is mostly clean and he’s hideously wound up, enough that he thinks about dropping his twice-a-week sessions down to one.

He doesn’t, though. He opens his laptop and pulls up the site and he’s back in the chat. Back with the stream, and with him.

He has the most beautiful blue eyes, the man in the camera. Yuuri chose ‘cerulean’ as his name for the chat on a whim, but it’s fitting. Today, he’s wearing an olive green robe with one of his shoulders just beginning to peek out. The robe is gauzy, settled like a wash over his skin.

He’s so beautiful, smiling at the camera, skin clear and lovely.

“Hello!” He greets. “I have a special surprise today!”

Yuuri leans forward just a little on his couch.

“Today, all of my viewers are being entered into a drawing for a private stream!” he announces. He gestures with his hands, fingers drawn wide. “So after the stream, someone will be getting _very_ lucky! I know I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but I’m just so excited!”

Yuuri swallows, drily. He’s torn, immediately, by the overwhelming desire for it to be him and the acute knowledge that if it is, he’ll somehow manage to ruin it.

But that’s a problem for later.

Now, the man in the camera is smiling, and Yuuri can watch as intently as he’d like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "i want this finished by the end of august" i said, a deluxe fucking fool.


	4. Chapter 4

The robe isn’t a color he normally wears. He’s a little nervous, pulling it on, but it’s sheer in a way he likes and he loves how long it is. It’s glamorous. It makes him _feel_ glamorous. He leans into that feeling.

Selling sex is sort of like selling anything else, he’s come to realize. It’s not just the thing itself that he sells; he sells the way it makes them _feel_ , and this evening, Viktor is a movie star. Viktor is unattainable, untouchable, beautiful.

 _Someone will be very lucky_ , he’d said, and he means it. They are lucky to be here with him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he murmurs. “I’m still putting my face on.”

He has a mirror positioned just above the camera, such that he can accurately look into it to put on his lipstick, but also pull in close. He doesn’t have particularly plush or full lips, but he knows that the intimacy of watching someone put on their lipstick is a draw. He’s going to make them work for it tonight.

The shade is dark red, and the formula is rich. It glides on easily, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t make a show of it, tracing the bow and curve of his mouth. He presses his lips together and lets them fall back, neutral. He keeps his gaze heavy and doe-eyed, when he glances directly into the lens, into the crowd watching him through the site.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” he purrs.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the chat begin to blow up. He smirks. His numbers have been pretty good lately, which is why he’s giving away the private session.

He runs his hands through his hair, both hands, letting his shoulders roll through the motion, smooth. The robe slips off his shoulder. He leaves it there.

He heaves a long, breathy sigh, really getting the movement on his chest. This was planned, too.

He got the piercings done a couple of weeks ago, but he hasn’t worn conspicuous jewelry in them yet, and he hasn’t been bare chested in the stream since he got it done. The bar is steel, with little hearts on the end. They flash, in the light. Showy.

“Of course, I had to keep my jewelry on,” he says. “But I get the feeling you won’t mind.”

He lets his hand trail, lazily, down his chest. He spreads his legs, and the robe slides a little. He’s increasingly glad he went with the dark green— it’s casting shadow well.

He lets his body sag a little, tension bleeding out of his spine, head rolling back. He opens his mouth, and draws his hand back up to rub over the star point little pieces of metal. He lets his breath fall loud and hungry from his painted lips.

Viktor keeps drawing his breath in such a way that his chest rises and falls as an exaggeration.

Everything he does is an exaggeration.

He lets the satin tie on the robe loose, and leans back, fully along the daybed. 

* * *

An odalisque.

Yuuri gasps, aloud, looking at him draped across the daybed, body languorous and long, covered in the heavy tones of khaki and olive. He glows in the color. He’s beautiful. Yuuri feels his blood rush, to watch as the man in the camera’s hands lazily trace down his body, reaching between his legs.

Yuuri had never understood the appeal of bedroom paintings until now.

His eyes, hungry, trace the shape of his body. His eyes, hungry, commit to absolute memory the color of his nipples, rosy and fleshy with the flinty shine of steel embedded within them.A body, so beautiful, just out of his reach.

The man in the camera spreads his legs, wider, so wide he has to throw one over the edge of the daybed. The robe falls open, all the way, revealing an unbroken expanse of milky, smooth flesh.

Yuuri’s vocabulary runs out for shades of white. It stops on his tongue, trying to think of the living, breathing marble of the man in the camera. Yuuri’s brain stops for a moment, and his eyes feast.

He reaches between his legs, chest heaving dramatically, and he grabs his cock.

It is as overwhelming as it was the first time, watching him. Wanting him. Hungering for him.

The man in the camerapulls on his cock slowly, body moving with the movement, rolling. He huffs, he moans. Yuuri watches his body slowly flush, mauve and scarlet. High contrast, against the marble-toned paleness of his skin, the silver of his hair, the green of the parted, slipping robe.

Yuuri watches his body roll and shift and move, watches the landscape of him quiver, watches the blooded ecstasy of his body shift and change in color. Yuuri watches the shift of his body, barely able to process seeing one part of the man in the camera before he moves and Yuuri has to see all of him again.

Yuuri watches, overwhelmed, the man in the camera. He feels jittery, unable to even blink, watching him.

“I’m going to— I’m going to,” the man in the camera moans, “I’m going to—“

And then, of course, he does. He freezes, cock bloodred in his fist, and his expression seizes. Mouth open wide, eyes shut, breath rushing out of him.

Yuuri watches him, overcome and fascinated, his own breathing rushed and strange.The feeling is urgent, hungry.

The man in the camera comes, and he lays there on the bed, chest heaving beautifully, flushed, sweating. The robe has all but slid off of him. He twists, turning onto his side to face the camera, propping his head up.

He looks close enough to touch. He is far enough away that Yuuri can really, truly look.

“Oh,” the man in the camera yawns, all languor and ease. “I suppose I should announce who won the prize, mm?” He takes a deep breath and rises from the daybed. He reaches, to a computer, Yuuri guesses, and hits a button.

There’s a pause, his eyes focused off camera, and then he looks back.

“Cerulean,” he says, winking, one perfect blue eye fluttering closed.

Yuuri stops breathing.

He shakes his head. “Oh no,” he says, “oh no, no, no.”

“Thank you to _everyone_ for showing up tonight,” the man in the camera purrs. “And to my new friend Cerulean, I’ll be in touch soon regarding your special prize.”

“Oh no,” Yuuri repeats, in his living room, his stomach dropping. “Oh, oh no.”

Oh _no_.

**Author's Note:**

> hi-- i've been kind of updating everything slowly because i've wanted to finish the second chapter of this before i posted the first. i'm also working on a big bang, some mini bangs (or bings, if you will) and i've been sort of chaotically writing on updates for everything all at once. the goal is to have all of this finished and posted by early august, when it's hottest, so i'm hoping to turn out updates about twice a month.   
> please come bother me on twitter! @moosefeels


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